Wilds of Eldraine is officially released next week, and nearly everything is dropping in price. Generally speaking, I want to stay away from preorder prices, so no new news there. However, this week we got a new set of Secret Lairs, and these are worth thinking about.
We’ll need to compare them to other drops, to see if it’s all about the card or if the look of the thing is enough on its own. We also need to consider the other factors, such as availability, number of sales, and reprints.
So let’s talk about the Fall Superdrop 2023 and where it compares.
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Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
Welcome back to my ongoing series of calculations that takes the crumbs Wizards gives us and turns it into a statistical feast! This set has several variations, and subsets, and a bonus sheet, all of which have slightly different odds of coming out of a Collector Booster.
Please note that for some boosters we’re given detailed breakdowns, and for others we aren’t given much, but I’ll do my best to make sense of it all.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
The Enchanting Tales subset is completely revealed at this point, and we need to talk about what’s going to happen with these cards. I’ll have an article coming out with the math soon, both for the nonfoils and foils, but the overall idea with a set like this is to lower prices.
So how low can they go? Let’s talk about the mythics today.
First of all, know that the mythics are going to be pretty rare, even nonfoils. They’ve done some wonky things to the collation of cards in this set, and full details are coming soon. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that these will be all over the place. Keep in mind that these represent some of the most popular casual cards, and many copies that are opened by casual players won’t be put on eBay or TCGPlayer.
Second, as a supplemental subset, if these cards stay expensive, the rest of Wilds of Eldraine will be that much cheaper. This came into play with the Mystical Archive from Strixhaven, but that was added to a set with a lackluster power level. That doesn’t seem to be the case as yet with Wilds of Eldraine, but we’ll see.
For each of these cards, I’m going to list the number of printings, how much the cheapest and most expensive versions are, and the EDHREC rank. Again, casual players can place huge demand on a card without ever listing it. EDHREC is useful data, but not everyone registers there. Use the data, let it assist you, but it’s not the only number that matters.
Bitterblossom (6 printings, $20 for the cheapest version, $100 for the most expensive, 52,000 EDHREC decks) – Once upon a time, this card was $80, and pushing hard for $100 based on the dominance of Faeries in Modern.
That time was several printings ago, though, and while BItterblossom doesn’t rule Modern as it used to, it’s still used by a very wide array of decks in Commander. We last saw the card in Double Masters 2022, so a reprint here isn’t terribly shocking. This will help keep the price low, though, so all versions should be hovering around $17-$20 for some time. Even a new round of Faerie goodness will have a hard time lifting the many printings up.
Blood Moon (10 printings, $11 to $86, 48k decks) – One of the most iconic sideboard or mainboard cards, emblematic of entire strategies, this has had a lot of printings since it premiered in The Dark way back in the late nineties. As a mythic, I’m not expecting the price to tumble much from $10, even though it’s not currently in favor in Modern. It might go down a dollar or two, and the premium versions could go for a pretty penny indeed. Tournament players tend to favor nonfoils, but they make up for it by buying in playsets.
Defense of the Heart (4 printings, $10 to $170, 30k decks) – This feels like a supremely broken card, and in some ways it is. Mystery Booster versions got incredibly cheap in 2020 but slowly, interest has been growing:
This is another card that is very easy for casual demand to soak up. The appeal is obvious, and it just pops into almost any green deck. The price will drop, though, with $5 not being out of the question for the most basic versions.
Doubling Season (5 printings, $50 to $160, 134k decks) – The poster child for reprints regaining value, I have confidence in the eventual return to $60-$70 if it’s left alone for a while. I can’t remember so many cards getting back to back reprints the way they did to us this year, but for these mythics at least, the recovery should be there.
I don’t think this will drop too much farther, but again, two in a row with Commander Masters might send it lower than it’s been in a long time. Thirty dollars is my prediction, and we might see some vendors panic-sell because of the double-printing.
Grave Pact (8 printings, $12 to $240, 50k decks) – Yes, this has had more printings than Season, but the super-chase foils of 8th Edition has boosted the max price by a lot. Grave Pact is a ridiculously powerful card, causing entire strategies to fold under the weight of the forced sacrifices. However, CMM versions were trending down to $10 and this might push regular copies to $7 or even $5.
Greater Auramancy (2 printings, $30 to $90, 13k decks) – Shadowmoor was the original printing, and this got a judge foil in 2022. We’re about to see this fall, and fall hard, because the casual demand just isn’t there. Shroud is an ability that is both good and bad. You lose out on two things: you can’t target your own enchantments, nor give your enchanted creatures further enchantments. As a result, this card isn’t very popular in Commander. This will be lucky to be $10 and more likely $5.
Kindred Discovery (3 printings, $15 to $25, 77k decks) – The graph here tells quite a story, and hints at what could be:
This is an extremely powerful draw engine for typal decks, good before you cast the creatures or when you’re ready to swing with them. Either way, you’re getting some cards, and the incidental printings on The List kept the price from rising until Baldur’s Gate sent it to $5, where it had finally started to recover.
Right away, $5-$10 feels right for the card, that’s where it got to as a rare for CLB. These premium versions should be pretty affordable as well, and once they bottom out should be excellent spec targets.
Land Tax (7 printings, $25 to $80, 84k decks) – Another card that has seen a lot of printings, I have similar hopes for this as I do for Doubling Season:
It gets low, time passes, it gets high again. The reprint pace is picking up, though, with 2X2 and now CMM plus this extra printing probably putting this as low as $20, possibly $15.
As I said before: If they leave it alone, it’ll recover. No guarantee that they will with how sets go in the modern age. No guarantees anymore, so it’ll be time to be cautious.
Necropotence (6 printings, $15 to $75, 80k decks) – A surprising number of people have never played with this card, and its delightful pattern of ‘pay now, draw later.’ It’s quite powerful, and fun to abuse, which it’s why it’s listed in so many decks online. I fully expect it to go below $10 during this printing.
Omniscience (4 printings, $13 to $180, 37k decks) – The Invocation version is by far the most expensive, and that won’t budge much with this printing. Another card whose price is warped by the invisible forces of casual players, as this should be cheaper, given its play patterns and availability. I expect this to dip below $10 for the cheapest versions.
Parallel Lives (2 printings, $40 to $70, 86k decks) – Parallel Lives is what everyone expected in this set, just not alongside Doubling Season. It was a rare in 2011, and then a judge foil a couple years ago, and now gets its first major injection of copies. This should hold near $25 when all is said and done.
Repercussion (2 printings, $20 to $100, 10k decks) – If this was opponents only, you’d be in the realm of most busted cards ever. It’s still very fun to abuse, though, but the low play pattern is going to doom this card to be very cheap. I don’t know yet if collectors will be enough to keep the price of premium versions high, but this is reprint equity that will never be regained.
Rhystic Study (7 printings, $38 to $360, 411k decks!) – Iconic, powerful, the fastest way to turn a Commander game into a 3v1 scenario, you should always pay the one but sometimes you just can’t.
It’s gone from common to rare and now a mythic, and while the price will come down some, this is another card that has the ‘ooh, I have the perfect deck for this to go into’ effect. I think this will hold above $30 in the short term, and start climbing again in the long run. The premium versions will be very costly, so prepare yourself.
Smothering Tithe (4 printings, $16 to $52, 344k decks) – For a card released in 2019, this has one of the biggest inclusion rates around. In that time, it’s spawned a hundred memes about how weak white is, how it needs the help so badly. This is yet another card to be printed in Double Masters 2022, then hit twice in a row with CMM and now this. With the Commander Masters copies already pushing to $15 and lower, this is going to be a siren, singing of future profit, but only once it hits bottom.
Sneak Attack (6 printings, $6 to $30, 33k decks) – You might play this in a Commander deck already, or use it in Sneak and Show in Legacy, but the demand isn’t strong. It’s neat to play giant monsters with haste, and then figure out some mass reanimation, bounce the critter, or flicker the card. My favorite is Teferi’s Veil, but season to your personal taste. I suspect that this printing will make sure that the card stays at or below $5 for quite some time to come.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
Commander Masters has been live for a week, and there’s some oddities going on, which you might expect from a reprint set with a high price point. Collector Boosters have taken a nosedive to the $175 range, which is really close to distributor pricing. As a result, I’m being cautious about any spec purchases for a while, especially with most of these prices being on a downward trend.
Not everything has gotten cheaper, though. Some of these prices are trending upwards for this first week, and we ought to think about if they are going to hold those prices, at least for those versions. So let’s get into some cards, specific versions of those cards, and what the long-term plan should be for these.
Rise of the Eldrazi (Foil Extended Art) – Up to $45 from $20
This spell has two awesome flavor wins: It’s one of the cards that has the same name as a set, and the three effects you get for your TWELVE mana are what you’d get from casting each of the original three titans. There’s not going to be shenanigans with recurring this spell, as it exiles itself, but there are plenty of decks that would love to abuse extra turn-destroy a permanent-draw four cards.
Regular and EA versions of the card have trickled down in price this week, but the FEA versions started low and have shot up. The price gap feels about right, but as a rare, this shows up in Collector Boosters only once every 157 packs or so. This promises to be a popular card in colorless strategies, so I like it long-term. I’ll be more interested in picking up any of the three other versions when they get under $10.
Cyclonic Rift (Foil Etched) – Up to $47 from $25
I’m generally going to shy away from ‘staples that get cheap’ as a buying strategy, but clearly, there’s some interest in this particular card at under $30, so much so that it’s bounced back up. There’s a terrible term, the ‘dead cat bounce,’ that gets used frequently to describe the phenomenon of people thinking that something has gotten too cheap and they need to get it now. This causes an upward bump in pricing even as the overall price heads downwards.
Other foil versions were $50, and this etched version being under $30 does seem tempting, but it’s the first week and foil etched has its own slot in Collector Boosters. It’s still just over 150 CBs to get any one etched foil rare, though, so there will be copies available. I expect this to trend back downwards some more, and get close to $20 for the most basic versions.
Fierce Guardianship (Borderless) – Foil and nonfoil each up $20 or $25 –
The ‘free spells’ cycle was given the framebreak treatment, which is different from the textured foil treatment. These spells are awesome, and worth thinking about in any color, but especially in white, red, or blue decks, where these spells can keep your commander alive and in play. As a cycle, these were only in the one set of Commander decks, with no List or Secret Lair printing. With this being the first major injection of new copies, I see the bounce they are currently experiencing and I don’t think it can last for the non-premium versions.
Foil borderless copies are unlikely to go much lower, if they go lower at all. Fierce Guardianship especially tends to be a cEDH staple, and those folks do have a magpie’s eye for the most collectible versions of cards. I wouldn’t be shocked to see that at $120 in a month or two, but I also wouldn’t be surprised at $75.
I need to highlight something from my article on the Math of Commander Masters: The slot with Borderless foils is only 4% to be textured, and with the ratio of rares to mythics for Borderless cards, you’ll get a foil Borderless Fierce Guardianship (or any of the other four) about every 28.5 Collector Boosters. Granted, a whole lot of those copies that get opened will get put right into the owner’s Commander deck of choice, but still, that’s a lot of copies and my hunch is that the price has farther to fall for all versions.
Smothering Tithe (Foil Etched) – (Up to $17 from $15, 2X2 etched foil down to $20 from $35 a month ago) – Now to be fair, Tithe (as well as Doubling Season) is getting a second printing right away as part of the Enchanting Tales subset for Wilds of Eldraine. That sort of one-two punch is going to hit any card deep in the value, and even a card as popular as Tithe is will show a loss.
Etched foils having a dedicated slot in the Collector Boosters means that there will not be a real shortage of those cards, but the drop rate still isn’t amazing. Two in a row this way is probably going to mean that the regular versions of Tithe drop pretty low, and with several to choose from, the more premium versions might take a while to get expensive again.
Spellseeker (regular nonfoil) – Up to $13 from $8, other versions dropping – It’s always interesting to see when a card creeps up in price after a reprint. Clearly vendors underpriced it by a couple of dollars out of the gate, and with the other versions taking a tumble, it’s the rare case when preordering would have saved you money.
Spellseeker hasn’t ever had a wide release, though. It was rare in Battlebond, a niche set, the nit got a Judge version in 2020 and a Secret Lair not long ago. Now as a mythic, plus the casual demand of more than 60,000 decks on EDHREC, that’s a formula for surprising results. The borderless version is cool, yes, but I doubt people are upgrading to that over the Judge version or the trippy Secret Lair.
The Great Henge (Foil-Etched) – Up to $52 from $36
I can understand why this would drop early, given that it was just in Lord of the Rings’ bonus sheet and now we’re getting a regular/foil/foil-etched set of copies, but this is a very big bounce, one I’m not convinced will go back down. The Great Henge is as staple as cards get, interacting with a range of strategies and making everything better. Mana, lifegain, counters and card draw. This does everything you could hope for, being listed in 130,000 decks online as a result.
That being said, I’m not expecting it to go a lot higher. We’ve got two sets putting more copies into circulation, and while casual demand soaks a whole lot of that up, the rise ought to be slower from here. If not reprinted, regular copies could get to $60 again by the end of 2024, but there’s no guarantee they won’t print it a third time.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
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